Keep in mind that our announcements and napkins and everything for the receptions were printed with Sep 22, 1966. We were scheduled to be in the 7 a.m. temple session and several of our friends from the ward in Battle Creek, who were going to school at BYU, were going to be at the temple at 7 a.m. The car was finally fixed and we had about 8 hours still to go to reach Salt Lake. We rolled into town in the middle of the night on the early morning of Sept 22. We had to wake up the guy at the motel to get into our rooms. We decided not to try to go to the temple that morning, but to wait and go in the afternoon and get a good days sleep instead.
So, later that afternoon, with just the three of us (people that we knew) in the session, we went to the Salt Lake Temple. There, we received our own endowments and then went to a sealing room where we were sealed as husband and wife. No one was there. Just my mother. The kids were in some family room the temple offers. We had decided that I would be sealed to my mother and Floyd at the same time. So, we did that, too. Martin and Laura were dressed all in white, too and were brought in so they could be sealed to their father. Now we were all really a family.
One image that stands out from that day is that we were late, as usual, getting to the temple. We had to get there that day or all the printed stuff we had would be wrong. I was hurrying Karen along and being my usual impatient jerk of a self when she stopped us. I’m not sure where my mother and the kids were, maybe they had gone on into the temple. But we were standing on the sidewalk outside the temple right on the north side of temple square. Karen said. Let’s have a prayer before we go in. I said right here on the street. She said yes, that’s what she wanted to do. People who know me know how much I hate having attention focused on me and I resisted, but she wouldn’t move and we were late, so we stopped right there on the sidewalk. People were walking by and we ignored them all and bowed our head and said a prayer to get us in the mood to enter the temple. I will never forget that day or that prayer.
Dad
Jim you are a wonderful narrator. I feel like I could have been there with you.